Close Quarter Snipers out of control

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by OneShadowWarrior, Mar 16, 2020.

  1. DarkStarAnubis

    IIRC de-cloaking takes 400ms (as in: you can fire after that time).

    Assuming this information ("attacker is decloaking") is sent immediately from the attacker's pc to the main server and then to your PC if the round-trip time + GPU redraw time + your reaction time exceeds 400 ms you'll be hit (e.g. with a +200ms round trip and reaction time +200ms)

    Not so much developers can do except increase de-cloaking time (which I believe they did already in the past).

    Edit: I would personally go for a long cloak and de-cloak process (1 sec) in exchange for a fully noiseless operation.
  2. JibbaJabba



    We can fix this. Simply give cloakers an additional weapon slot and put the cloak in it. Make the cloak uncloak instant if desired, just don't let them have a weapon in hand if it's instant.
    • Up x 1
  3. Johannes Kaiser

    Matter of fact, if that goes in the primary slot...
  4. That_One_Kane_Guy

    I honestly only rarely see this happen myself. I made a point to grab a Shadowplay of the last times I got dinged in CQB by a decloaking sniper and this is what it usually looks like from my end:

    [IMG]

    While not the best example since in this instance I'm already prepared for enemies to be down there, it's pretty representative of my experiences. He is 100% visible on my end before his shot hits me, and while he does get me I do have the time to get a shot off and had he missed or bodyshot me I would have killed him.

    Generally speaking, 5/10 times I peek that angle the sniper misses and I kill him, 3/10 times he bodyshots me and I kill him. He had to be good enough to hit the shot and he had to be on the money. Far less obnoxious to me than getting Lolpodded or HESH'd through a window or repeatedly run over by a Harasser.
    • Up x 1
  5. JibbaJabba



    This is a pretty good example of what it's like when it's working correctly.

    Even so it provides clear evidence of what is going wrong. It is NOT 400ms (4 tenths of a second) between when the sniper begins to appear and when the shot goes out. Seems about 100ms.

    I believe on the bolters screen it was probably correct. Not on yours.
  6. That_One_Kane_Guy

    I don't know where the 400ms number comes from, but I'm almost certain decloaking takes less time than that. It may appear a little shorter on the receiving end, but not enough to really matter. I was still able to see and react to him before he shot, 100ms extra wouldn't have saved me.

    Tightening up the networking in general would probably go a long way towards reducing the kinds of issues you're talking about. Unfortunately there's only so much you can do to resolve the issue when the other guy has his Ethernet cable plugged into a bucket of water.

    Also I'd be fine if there was a way to tune your class abilities in general to strike a particular balance that suited you, although I'm pretty sure that ship has sailed at this point.
  7. DarkStarAnubis

    To clarify: what I wrote is

    "IIRC de-cloaking takes 400ms (as in: you can fire after that time)."

    The graphic representation of de-cloaking has its timing. I am referring to the timing after which the infiltrator can fire.

    When the infiltrator starts to decloak on his PC, you do not know it yet. You will know when the packet with that info has reached your PC after the round-trip and after your GPU has started to draw it (say you have 50 fps, it means additional 20 ms).

    Meanwhile the clock is ticking on the infiltrator'PC and after 400 ms he'll fire.
  8. pvt.pyle

    First off, Infiltrators get absolutely wiped by heavy assaults, i dont know what you're talking about. secondly, mid range sniper rifles are good for small battles. If you have a minimum 6x scope, then people would stop sniping all together because of this ridiculous kill cam telling everyone where you are. whats the point? at least with mid range sniper rifles I can kill, move, and kill again, despite this stupid kill cam telling ppl where i am when i kill them.
  9. pvt.pyle



    I would argue with this. Sure, a good infiltrator will move frequently. I auraxed my infiltrator, i have been primarying infil for years now. I would move after a few kills, not after every shot, nor after every single kill. Now, I have to move after every single kill because now someone knows exactly where I am. And it is not a "oh, i'll shift a few yards over here". no, it is "i need to vacate the area because they are going to search the area for me now". I agree with the other guy, the kill cam is a huuuuuuge nerf to the infil snipers of the game. People know exactly where you are and you cannot just snipe a battle anymore, you have to snipe, then evacuate, then find a new spot, then kill, then evacuate. it is bs
  10. Demigan

    They don't teleport towards your location, they need to move there. You can shoot them beforehand, you can move a few meters and surprise them while they look in your old position. It's what I do effectively, so why can't you?

    Even without the death cam Infiltrators had to move quickly. It's not as if it's a big secret where an Infil is hiding with the low-intelligence that just about every single one of them have. "Oh god I got shot at, I wonder what vantage point they used. Well that spot over there is high and the closest accessible spot from their spawn. Yep there they are".

    Infiltrators complaining about the death cam are just using confirmation bias. Each time they are found it has to be from the death cam. It can't be that they pick the same spots with the same views each and every time right? Even better! They pick the spots with the largest view of the area so they can fire at the most targets! Wonderful! That means they can be shot at from many more area's and counter-sniped with ease! There's a reason why professional snipers make sure that their view of the target is as little as possible so they can't be seen or countered as easily from a position they aren't looking at, but let's ignore that and just sit here basically out in the open and rely on my cloaking device to protect me...
    • Up x 1
  11. JibbaJabba

    Sorry but this is patently false.

    If you go to competitive infantry play or scrims on Jaeger you'll find bolters are limited to one per team if not banned outright. Once the skill ceiling of each class in approached the bolter becomes unstoppable because it negates the skill of the other player.

    Bolters will have a much higher KDR than heavies and should win 1v1s by a large margin. If not, then the bolter isn't good enough at clicking heads.
    • Up x 1
  12. That_One_Kane_Guy

    There have been times where I've been killed by an Infil hidden in a little nook somewhere, respawned, run back and shot him in the face because he never bothered to move at all. If brains were gunpowder some players wouldn't have enough to blow their nose.
    This I agree with, snipers in this game excel at winning 1v1s, even against heavies.
    I've heard this Jaeger argument before but not once has anyone been able to put up stats from one of those events where the bolter in question was doing a borderline deific job of slaying his so-called peers in lesser classes. More often than not sniper restrictions exist in FPS games because having too many constitutes a drain in combat power for your team. Lots of snipers makes for a pretty poor team comp when you're in a chaotic, fast paced firefight with lots of things going on at once.

    Snipers can excel on live largely because in most cases your enemy is not communicating and has minimal coordination which can let you fight them piecemeal. When you are fighting a competent platoon your ability to do this is massively restricted, actual events even more so. There were no class restrictions in place on Outfit Wars yet snipers there were still an uncommon sight, at least on Connery. They certainly didn't dominate any firefights.

    If they really were as unstoppable at the top level as people would have you believe, there would be no shortage of examples of high-level players maining the class and slaughtering the average players on live. The fact that this has never happened and the class meta has essentially remained the same since launch suggests to me that either:
    1. the skill ceiling for actually reaching that level of dominance is so high as to be essentially self-restricting, or
    2. the actual effectiveness of this class in practical application is greatly exaggerated.
    • Up x 1
  13. JibbaJabba


    The restrictions on jeager are there because the bolter is too effective. Nobody puts limits on what is ineffective. Medics/Engies for example - you could run a whole squad of them if you choose but you won't see a single one.

    I'm sure you could pull stats of any common jaeger scrim and see what you are after. I don't find it worth the effort to even look :D

    The bolter on the enemy team is literally worthy of their own side callouts. Among other battle information your team must know if the enemy bolter is up or down at a given time. Any time the bolter kills or is killed it's a callout.

    The reason you don't see them dominate on live play is their KPM. They'll have the highest KD of a non-vehicle player but low KPM compared to the Assault classes.

    The best bolters I know won't run the class. They turn their nose up at it the same as they do Maxes or HESH farming.
  14. That_One_Kane_Guy

    Neither do I, but then again I'm not citing it as a source.
    Yet of those three things only two of them regularly appear every night without fail. Claiming that we never see skilled bolter groups dominate on live because they are all too noble to do so is quite extraordinary. Look at the hilarity that ensues every time a new OP toy like the Canis or Firestorm gets released. Players find what is most effective and ruthlessly exploit it until it either gets nerfed or someone figures out a counter.
    • Up x 1
  15. MonnyMoony


    Yep - if anything, kill cam is a brilliant decoy tool for a sniper or stalker. I employ tactics like this all the time.

    Other variations are

    1. Stay still to make it looks like you are an inexperienced sniper/stalker - then once kill cam is inactive a few seconds after your kill, drop AI mines in your old location and move. I get loads of kills like this when people enraged by having been killed simply blunder into that location being far too focused on finding you rather than looking out for mines.

    2. Whilst kill cam is active, run in one direction to make it look like you are heading to a new location or a hiding hole - then after a few seconds once kill cam is inactive, change direction to go somewhere else (possibly with a view of the location you looked like you were heading for). You can keep people running in circles for hours doing this.
  16. iller

    This doesn't address the actual Cause of the meta, it only "aims" (pun intended) at the Symptom that the Exploiters wanted you to be gas-lit into thinking was the source. The real mechanic going on behind the scene has been obvious in every NucElusive video since the first time he started recording with a TriggerBot. And it only grew from there when VPN'ing got way more popular and considered a basic requirement for packet timing manipulation. SOE netcode architecture and cheat detection have ALWAYS been begging for this exact kind of problem. And when DBG crawled out of the SOE trainwreck, there was never going to be the right resources made available to finally address the poorly designed mechanics PHILOSOPHY behind this crap.

    I blame it all on Smedley at this point. He over focused on some kind of myopic software-scanning magic bullet to try and "catch" these people before they became a problem, instead of focusing on a sustainable long term open-plugin COMMUNITY solution like VALVe always has. This is exactly why Valve is still absolutely killing it despite EPIC's massive money dumps to try and unseat them, and more importantly, it's why SOE is a sad little speed dip in the grand history of online MMO's now.

    (And honestly at this point; because people never get banned for it, I'd probably be exploiting it myself IF my computer could actually handle the additional strain but since it can't, I just focus on long range BoltAction like I always have since day-1 going on 8 years ago...Otherwise I've lost ALL respect for infantry Cqc in this game and I don't understand why anyone else persists in subjecting themselves to it unless they're they a SMG sh**ter who's just scavenging cheap kills against other players still stuck on non-Zen AMD chips)
  17. iller

    ...then don't comment on it. Put up,or Shut up. If a total idiot like DarkSydePhil could record himself, then you have NO EXCUSE